Thanks for the reply. I'm beginning to remember why I gave up on these threads last time. I show clear evidence of mid-stroke adjustments and even swooping and all the CTE people, JB in particular, say "Nope, nothing to see here." If everybody weren't so defensive that their image of CTE might be altered, and joined the effort to learn more, then maybe both sides of the debate would learn something.
About the stroke corrections -- unless you have analyzed a stroke in slow motion with video analysis software, then you can't make the claim that no stroke adjustments are being made. I'm not saying they are intentional, they just happen.
How do you really know? I can pocket a ball with the corner to corner shot, follow it in with the cue ball, and still have a swoop that I can't really detect unless I see it on camera.
Unfortunately my experience in this forum is that new ideas, if they challenge the orthodoxy, are not welcome. For instance:
There's an older video of Dave Segal, a practitioner of CTE, running some balls in straight pool. I only watched two of his break shots and you could drive a mack truck through the swoop in his stroke just before the forward motion of the cue. He pivots, takes some practice strokes, and then delivers the cue in a direction completely different from the practice strokes. (break shots are easier to analyze because the stroke is usually longer, and the additional speed tends to amplify any small stroke error, IMO).
Now, I don't say that to criticize. He's apparently quite a good player, and this video was some years ago. But, he was clearly using CTE and I make the simple observation that the direction of his "shot" stroke does not resemble the "practice" strokes. Maybe that is OK and CTE doesn't require a straight stroke as long as you have set up in the correct position. I don't know, but I do know that nobody who uses CTE seems at all interested in this information. I get more of a "Burn the witch!" vibe.
A swoop or correction in stroke is not part of CTE. If someone is swooping then that is a habit of their play. They could probably take corrective action and better their game. But it is not a part of, or requirement of CTE itself.
Stroke is another topic of the game, and an important one at that. You have to aim straight and stroke straight. You have to have solid fundamentals to back up any aiming system.